What is this Open webOS 1.0?

As we touched on when talking about the revised expectations and hopes for webOS, there's something interesting right at the very end of the open source roadmap: the September release of "Open webOS 1.0". What exactly is this mysterious Open webOS and why are we going to be back at version 1.0? That's the question we posed to HP, because we don't like ambiguity (we've had enough of that over the years). Here's how HP clarified Open webOS 1.0 to us:

“The 1.0 release of Open webOS will include many new features, technologies, and enhancements, benefitting from HP’s ongoing development of the code. This work will also have the effect improving performance on a variety of hardware.”

We're going to deduce from this that Open webOS 1.0 is the combination of two things. The first is the set of modifications announced today (the new standard Linux kernel, switching to JavaScriptCore, etc - and likely more to be unveiled in the coming months) that will make it easier to put webOS on other hardware and aid in the open source process. The second part is webOS 4.0, which we're sure has been in development in some shape or form but with a questionable future. Open webOS 1.0 will combine those, giving webOS a second relaunch effort from HP.